The problem is not with the researchers so much as the beuraucracies of univiersities and funding, and the problems of peer review.
Many universities, especially those outside the U.S. use metrics for rating their researchers that are weighted towords publications from Elsevier and others. England is especially bad about this. For that reason many scientists don't have much of a choice in that they are forced to publish there is go without pay.
So totally open spaces raise issues of what it means to be published and the cost of maintaining the system must be borne somewhere. For that reason alone some money must go to journal publishing. However it is very possible for that funding to come from something other than overpriced subscriptions.
Finally, and optimistically most scientists are recityfying this themselves. Most authors post copies of their academic papers online and make them available through Citeseer and other locations so even though the journal is costly the paper may still be obtained even if a few months later.
This is not the first such discussion. Fred Brooks' book The Mythical Man Month contains some nice insights on IBM's OS 360 project and other such runaway failures.
It is surprising how many major IT groups keep relearning some of the same lessons, if they learn at all.
IS's like other telcos do have common carrier status which predates the DMCA. They have been classified as such for all traffic otherwise any e-mail that is sent over their system discussing a crime of any sort would make them liable as an accomplice.
Common Carrier status predates the internet and applies to anyone who ferries data (e.g. phone calls) but takes no responsibility for the content itself on the grounds that they cannot and should not monitor it. Basically that the privacy of our phone conversations, or e-mails, outweighs what little phyric benefit might arise from having an omnipresent monitoring agency.
I'm assuming that you have the Hart InterCivic system as stated by The Verifier. In that event, as other authiors have noted you may have no hope of detecting truly electrionic tampering. However you may spot some things. The links below also apply to Diebold and ES&S systems as well.
I would be sure, to tell all voters to read the confirmation screen carefully. Many other locations have reported instances of vote switching where voters, once they reach the closing screen, see a different outcome than they pushed. Evidence from a Rice University study indicates that less than 30% of people even read this screen but those that do have reported nontrivial numbers of flipped votes.
Secondly I would educate yourself about the machines. Ohio's Everest study, particularly chapter 14 contains many scary things about the machines. Some you can look for, many you cannot.
You will also find information from the California study notably the red-team reviews of the hart system.
It's worth noting at this point that while Barack Obama has said that he is against the wiretapping, he has stated that he is for the use of Signing Statements whereby a president issues his own commentary on a bill, and in the process, indicates what aspects of a law he will and will not follow. Bush has used these to circumvent bans on torture, among other things, and they would be a useful vehicle to override congress-enacted bans on the extension of presidential authority. McCain has said that he will not use them.
On this score McCain wants to extend the powers of the executive to spy without oversight upsetting the balance of powers among the branches. While on another score, Obama has said that he will extend the power of the executive to just ignore laws he does not like.
Two parties perhaps but I see no daylight between them.
Although the lawsuits are not about changed provisions in the GPL, both events are muscle-flexing by the free software community and, taken together, may foreshadow new risks in the irreconcilable conflict between open source software and its widespread use by for-profit companies.
The choice of words like "irreconcilable conflict" make clear the authors' stance, and his lack of understanding of the nuances of the issue. Even Stallman has never been against "for profit companies" and many selfsame companies can and do make money from free software. Similarly the cases he cited lower down (e.g. the modified software) are not a case of free software advocates challenging a company's right to use the system more a company's attempts to violate the contract under which they got the software. That is no different than a company taking software they purchased and making modifications against the purchase agreement. In either case they get sued.
While I do not always ascribe to the libertarian tautology that all laws are contracts in this case the two are the same. Free software is no different than other software. Both come with licencing agreements and both come with a price. In the free-software case it is a price of $0 and a more permissive contract but a contract just the same, and it carries the same penalties (vis a vis lawsuits).
This guy hasn't really dealt with it like that and seems to be of the Gates mindset of free software as something to be freely taken.
Ironically Lenny Bruce once did a show wearing nothing but a bowler hat, bow tie, and a pair of shoes. The line of cops that stood in the front row could do nothing about it because he hadn't broken any laws, the show was 18+. However, after the entire hour+ show was over he said the closing word "$hit", the only swear word in the entire show. At that point they hauled him off to jail for violating obscenity laws.
Oh no they tried. The problem is that design and implementation is a long long process. My understanding is that the first attempt went through the design phases in the late 80's to early 90's with then got cancelled for a variety of reasons. Congress then mandated a restart later after the Columbia disaster which resulted in the Constellation project.
This is going to keep a lot of people awake at night.
Now sit and think that for almost 50% of Americans the only guarantee they have that their vote is counted is that the hardware and software "are correct". Given that the local network techs are able to poke and test CISCO routers in a way that out voting machines are not this means that for most American voters (and voters in many other countries) we have less guarantee that our votes are cast on authentic machines than we do that our routers are "clean".
As scary as this sounds I am not at all surprised. The recent line of NASA administrators have been appointees with a decidedly low-cost high-private-sector mindset. In the abstract "just get someone to do it for free in exchange for ads" this sounds like a good(ish) idea. Certainly one that would sell well at a boardroom full of political appointees lobbyists congresscritters, etc. In short anyone but scientists and educators. To some extent NASA's original announcement of an MMO sounded similar, the kind of thing that makes for a nifty slogan/donut fueled idea but not necessarily something that will play out well, especially for no money.
Given NASA's history with overspecified budgets, often carved up by Congress as a home for pork I fully expect this MMO to never see the light of day unless google or someone else does it. Not because it is entirely wrong or because NASA "can't get it right" but because they will not be allowed to.
As an indication of what I am talking about consider the space shuttle. NASA has been trying to replace the space shuttle for years, since well before the Challenger disaster. The project has been restarted multiple times with each time congress allocating some but not all of the money and then subsequent congresses shutting it down before it can be completed to "reallocate" the money.
Many of the same congresscritters who angrily grilled NASA over the Columbia disaster probably cut funding for the shuttle replacement at least once in their careers. But I doubt they even remember doing it.
I would recommend the work of Robert T. Pennock who has written a well-reasoned book on Intelligent Deisgn and it's nonscientific nature. He does so as someone who takes both science and religion seriously rather than dismissing it out of hand he makes a clear refutation of the theory argumebnts.
CBO Cost estimates are linked from the bill description on Thomas. Click on the first link in the story.
As to NIST, well when asked they stated that the only trustworthy systems are ones that can be verified independently of the technology and to date only systems equipped with a VVPAT provide that as all the other proposed ones (e.g. Prime III) at some point require faith in preexaminations.
NIST, like most sensible people does not trust advance explanations to cover all cases.
NACO or the National Association of County Officials is what you refer to. NACO includes a Premier Corporate Membership program which allows companies to become members of the group. Microsoft, one of the members was heavily opposed to the bill (Windows CE is in the Diebold systems) and got NACO to lobby on their behalf.
Good Opt-Out bills have been tried Noteably HR 811 which failed explicitly because it was opt in and the budget hawks attacked it as a waste of money while the National Association of County Commissioners, a lobby group for the voting machine makers, claimed it was a big government attack on county territory.
All those groups claimed a willingness to support an opt-in version. None of them stepped up to the plate today though.
What you refer to is the Great Sparrow Campaign which was an attempt to combat a severe grain shortage in China by exterminating airborne and landborne pests that consumed or fouled the grain. Like most large-scale attempts to restructure nature this one failed with ugly ugly consequences. In this case, absent birds to eat them the locust population exploded killing the grain.
Interestingly enough just at the same time that China was facing this massive grain shortage Russia called in, loans that it had outstanding demanding grain and other food in payment. Rather than Default the communists forced the loans to be paid but that ended whatever positive relationship the two countries had. All through the 80's when people talked of a "Communist Conspiracy" they ignored the fact that after that little stunt the Chinese hated the Russians.
One possible consequence of cloud seeding may be hinted at in this Guardian article RAF Rainmakers 'caused 1952 flood' Let's hope that isn't the case.
I seem to recall a spate of threatened lawsuits and opposition to municipalities rolling their own coverage because it was "anti-competitive" and would cut into the profits of large telcos. Now those same telcos are abandoning their plans as "unprofitable" leaving many municipalities with nothing. If I were a libertarian I'd feel some sense of confusion, even doubt about the power of "the market" that was much hyped when people were attacking municipal wi-fi as "big government intrusion.
This guy seems like a nice candidate for an Ask Slashdot. I would ask two:
(1) How do you feel about large-scale datamining projects such as the Total Information Awareness project? While the project itself is gone it is not the first of its type. Do such projects strike you as technically feasible or even usable?
(2) As someone who has written software how do you feel about software patents?
Somewhat snarky (or sick) as this sounds I think you are right. The one true advantage that a suicide bomber confers is actually not the cheapness but the use of a human at all. As much as we may tend to hear them described as terrorists, etc. the simple fact of the matter is that most sucide bombers are anything but true believers but the misled, the misguided or the depressed.
But however much their personal reasons vary the fact that they are willing to blow themselves up sends a clear, and direct message. When the lives of a people are so bad that they can be found willing to kill themselves then what does that say? Put another way, when the people a government "serves" are so willing to die then no illusion of happiness can be maintained. And people, unlike robots can go where people go, cafes resteraunts, etc. They can look like anyone, be like anyone thus engendering the paranoia that destroys a civilization.
Look at Israel. The goal of suicide bombers there has been to make people afraid to go out, afraid to shop, afraid to sit in a cafe. Afraid, period to trust that the person next to them won't explode in a shower of nails at any moment. Not being an israeli I can't say how pervasive the fear is but my impression is that it is nonegligeable. Similar things could easily be said of Iraq where the prospect is that the neighbor might kill you for being a member of the wrong tribe or sect.
Until a robot offers gains at a comparatively cheap price they won't be chosen by "terrorists". Wealthier governments may prefer them but to what end? The laws of war (yes they exist) and the logic of war assumes human decisionmaking, an automatic robot seems more like a landmine, something that would kill "impersonally" and, like landmines seems likely to be one of those things that may do as much harm to the ones who deploy it as their "enemies" (let alone civilians) and will last long after the conflict in which it 'served'.
This American Life, is a PRI radio show that you can listen to online. They ran a good piece called "Know Your Enemy" that featured a meeting between a would-be suicide bomber and the Israeli minister of defense. The interview is enlightening both for the characteristics of the bomber and the process by which such suicide bombers are produced.
Just as with the supposed Islamic prohibition on beard trimming this is a point of contention in the Muslim world just as much as the acceptability of depictions of Christ (idol worship!), the right of women to wear pants, the right of people to read the bible, or the acceptability of Jesus Christ Superstar are points of disagreement in the Christian world. In both cases you find adherents on either side of the debate wielding, what they claim, to be the one true word and the weight of "tradition".
The answer really is that no one has the "proof" to back up the others and each group is just arguing that everyone do what they feel comfortable with. This article does take pains to point out that variability. Sadly most articles about religion often fail to note the internal divisions among "Christians", "Muslims", "Jews", etc. that often exceed the external ones.
That is, in fact, exactly why many Catholics and others are dubious about the Pope's stance against Artificial Insemination, especially given the Church's serious support of being fruitful and multiplying, a goal they use to bolster their opposition both to abortion and contraceptives.
That having been said many religious people place an emotional primacy on the act of conception and birth and meddling with that miracle. As such it is not entirely contradictory for the Pope to be more concerned with the processes that purport to mess with the production of new lives rather than those that merely extend existing life.
The part of this where the Pope is not way off is the potential directions that Artificial Insemination might take (think Gattaca) where a technology that may be used to help couples who need it gets turned into a mechanism to weed out "undesirables" or even, in the case of more totalitarian societies, breed only "perfect" humans (think Brave New World).
As much as I defend Artificial Insemination for those who need it I strenuously oppose any attempt to make for designer children.
Artificial Insemination is an interesting one. Basically it is using externam equipment to produce a fertilized egg and then insert it into a woman who otherwize cannot succeed through normal means. It is a well-known practice and can even, for the squeamish, be performed for a married couple using only their eggs and sperm, no external players are needed.
Interestingly this procedure, well-accepted in most western societies is banned in Italy even for married couples using their own genetic material thanks to the Church. The argument goes something along the lines of: "If god wanted them to have kids he would let them do it normally."
It is interesting because most/.ers might scoff at the pope and in many countries even ones with large Catholic populations like the U.S. his claims don't carry the weight of law. But in modern democratic Italy he can still arrainge for consenting married couples who want to raise healthy children of their own to be denied it because the process is "an affront".
So the title is misleading. The ACLU is filing suit against the county's decision to switch to Centrally-Counted optically scanned ballots where the ballots are filled out at the polling place and sent to a single central warehouse for scanning. They are not against Precinct-Counted optical scanners where they are scanned at the polling place.
The crux of their argument is that central counts unlike precinct count and even mediocre touchscreens offer the user a warning when they overvote or undervote for a race thus warning them that they ballot may not be counted and thus giving them a chance to fix it. Their argument is that this lack of a warning (however poor) is likely to cause many errors that the voters are never aware of.
So strictly speaking they are not against the use of paper ballots (it is my understanding that they favor them) just against this particular type of scanning system.
While this is not the most secret of the secretive (for years the very existence of the NSA was a secret) the fact that duties this big were assigned by a classified letter is appalling. When you couple this with the use of National Security Letters to compel the handover of goods to any thug in a trenchcoat it more and more appears that the goal of the present administration is to produce a kingly executive. One where oversight by the public and for the public is nonexistent and the whole process is simply inscrutable to us even as were are expected to knuckle under.
It is also interesting to me that it comes from this president who campaigned on the idea of a less controlling government, a smaller government, one that stayed out of our lives. This was based largely on the accusation that Clinton's favoratism for "Hate Crimes" legislation was an invasion of our privacy. It would be ironic if it was the least bit funny.
What I find is most interesting through is the use of the NSA in this manner. In many ways it is a textbook illustration of the way in which powers and agencies once built simply grow to fill all space they can. The NSA as initially instituted was a cold-war shop with the sole purpose of tapping and securing communications abroad while the existence of the group was a secret (many Americans were not aware of it until the 70's and the publication of the book "The Crystal Palace") it was, like the CIA, clearly setup to operate abroad and to spy on everyone but Americans.
It was, for lack of a better description a tool intended to work with us against others. With this addition that role has formally changed (it practically chainged with the AT&T hypocracy). While the formal change has been a secret the fact of the matter is that ever more of our resources are being turned inwards, onwords. Ever more effort is being expended to spy on us, on Americans with the understanding that our own government fears us as much or more than the rest of the world or at least that our own resources are better spent to attack us than others.
The idea of an executive floating on hostile seas rather than operating in safe waters has one crucial flaw. Dictators fall, and take everything around them, with them.
Yes actually there is a problem with having that if, it is mandatory. Therein lies the problem. If the government or indeed any twit in a uniform can demand your "RealID" and keep a log of it then your activities can be logged, your participation in, say, an anti-war demonstration can be cataloged and perhaps come back to haunt you. Ditto for your other unpopular views or activities.
The theory of valid ID may perhaps be arguable but the practice of what is done with it is very very different.
Post 9-11 there was a push both for RealID and the idea that "for our protection" police should be able to demand id at all times. The place where this and other activities has been exploited the most is in watching anti-war groups. Google it and you'll find a host of nonviolent noncriminal groups that have been catalogued, followed, identified, simply because they oppose the war. I myself have watched the (not so subtle) undercover cops infiltrate gatherings I was at and have probably been videotaped a few times. Add to this the "right" for them to demand my papers at all times and all of a sudden we have national tracking that does nothing to actually protect us.
This may sound like ranting to you but I assure you that it is not. The simple fact of the matter is that if the information is being gathered then it can be used against us by anyone in power or anyone with access. Leaving aside the fact that the biometric requirements of "RealID" are an invitation to identity theft (all info in one handy place).
Let us not also forget that on 9-11 the hijackers had valid ID. Not forged, not illicit, they had the real thing and they would have easily qualified for RealID. When boarding the planes they took their ID, the made no attempt to hide themselves under false names. They were not on the "no fly" lists. They simply walked through security with real drivers licenses and killed thousands. No "beefed up" card will change that.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is not with the researchers so much as the beuraucracies of univiersities and funding, and the problems of peer review.
Many universities, especially those outside the U.S. use metrics for rating their researchers that are weighted towords publications from Elsevier and others. England is especially bad about this. For that reason many scientists don't have much of a choice in that they are forced to publish there is go without pay.
So totally open spaces raise issues of what it means to be published and the cost of maintaining the system must be borne somewhere. For that reason alone some money must go to journal publishing. However it is very possible for that funding to come from something other than overpriced subscriptions.
Finally, and optimistically most scientists are recityfying this themselves. Most authors post copies of their academic papers online and make them available through Citeseer and other locations so even though the journal is costly the paper may still be obtained even if a few months later.
This is not the first such discussion. Fred Brooks' book The Mythical Man Month contains some nice insights on IBM's OS 360 project and other such runaway failures.
It is surprising how many major IT groups keep relearning some of the same lessons, if they learn at all.
IS's like other telcos do have common carrier status which predates the DMCA. They have been classified as such for all traffic otherwise any e-mail that is sent over their system discussing a crime of any sort would make them liable as an accomplice.
Common Carrier status predates the internet and applies to anyone who ferries data (e.g. phone calls) but takes no responsibility for the content itself on the grounds that they cannot and should not monitor it. Basically that the privacy of our phone conversations, or e-mails, outweighs what little phyric benefit might arise from having an omnipresent monitoring agency.
I'm assuming that you have the Hart InterCivic system as stated by The Verifier. In that event, as other authiors have noted you may have no hope of detecting truly electrionic tampering. However you may spot some things. The links below also apply to Diebold and ES&S systems as well.
I would be sure, to tell all voters to read the confirmation screen carefully. Many other locations have reported instances of vote switching where voters, once they reach the closing screen, see a different outcome than they pushed. Evidence from a Rice University study indicates that less than 30% of people even read this screen but those that do have reported nontrivial numbers of flipped votes.
Secondly I would educate yourself about the machines. Ohio's Everest study, particularly chapter 14 contains many scary things about the machines. Some you can look for, many you cannot.
You will also find information from the California study notably the red-team reviews of the hart system.
Voters Unite is also a source of some good info As does Pollworkers.us which is a useful site for those working the polls.
It's worth noting at this point that while Barack Obama has said that he is against the wiretapping, he has stated that he is for the use of Signing Statements whereby a president issues his own commentary on a bill, and in the process, indicates what aspects of a law he will and will not follow. Bush has used these to circumvent bans on torture, among other things, and they would be a useful vehicle to override congress-enacted bans on the extension of presidential authority. McCain has said that he will not use them.
On this score McCain wants to extend the powers of the executive to spy without oversight upsetting the balance of powers among the branches. While on another score, Obama has said that he will extend the power of the executive to just ignore laws he does not like.
Two parties perhaps but I see no daylight between them.
The choice of words like "irreconcilable conflict" make clear the authors' stance, and his lack of understanding of the nuances of the issue. Even Stallman has never been against "for profit companies" and many selfsame companies can and do make money from free software. Similarly the cases he cited lower down (e.g. the modified software) are not a case of free software advocates challenging a company's right to use the system more a company's attempts to violate the contract under which they got the software. That is no different than a company taking software they purchased and making modifications against the purchase agreement. In either case they get sued.
While I do not always ascribe to the libertarian tautology that all laws are contracts in this case the two are the same. Free software is no different than other software. Both come with licencing agreements and both come with a price. In the free-software case it is a price of $0 and a more permissive contract but a contract just the same, and it carries the same penalties (vis a vis lawsuits).
This guy hasn't really dealt with it like that and seems to be of the Gates mindset of free software as something to be freely taken.
Ironically Lenny Bruce once did a show wearing nothing but a bowler hat, bow tie, and a pair of shoes. The line of cops that stood in the front row could do nothing about it because he hadn't broken any laws, the show was 18+. However, after the entire hour+ show was over he said the closing word "$hit", the only swear word in the entire show. At that point they hauled him off to jail for violating obscenity laws.
Oh no they tried. The problem is that design and implementation is a long long process. My understanding is that the first attempt went through the design phases in the late 80's to early 90's with then got cancelled for a variety of reasons. Congress then mandated a restart later after the Columbia disaster which resulted in the Constellation project.
Now sit and think that for almost 50% of Americans the only guarantee they have that their vote is counted is that the hardware and software "are correct". Given that the local network techs are able to poke and test CISCO routers in a way that out voting machines are not this means that for most American voters (and voters in many other countries) we have less guarantee that our votes are cast on authentic machines than we do that our routers are "clean".
As scary as this sounds I am not at all surprised. The recent line of NASA administrators have been appointees with a decidedly low-cost high-private-sector mindset. In the abstract "just get someone to do it for free in exchange for ads" this sounds like a good(ish) idea. Certainly one that would sell well at a boardroom full of political appointees lobbyists congresscritters, etc. In short anyone but scientists and educators. To some extent NASA's original announcement of an MMO sounded similar, the kind of thing that makes for a nifty slogan/donut fueled idea but not necessarily something that will play out well, especially for no money.
Given NASA's history with overspecified budgets, often carved up by Congress as a home for pork I fully expect this MMO to never see the light of day unless google or someone else does it. Not because it is entirely wrong or because NASA "can't get it right" but because they will not be allowed to.
As an indication of what I am talking about consider the space shuttle. NASA has been trying to replace the space shuttle for years, since well before the Challenger disaster. The project has been restarted multiple times with each time congress allocating some but not all of the money and then subsequent congresses shutting it down before it can be completed to "reallocate" the money.
Many of the same congresscritters who angrily grilled NASA over the Columbia disaster probably cut funding for the shuttle replacement at least once in their careers. But I doubt they even remember doing it.
I would recommend the work of Robert T. Pennock who has written a well-reasoned book on Intelligent Deisgn and it's nonscientific nature. He does so as someone who takes both science and religion seriously rather than dismissing it out of hand he makes a clear refutation of the theory argumebnts.
CBO Cost estimates are linked from the bill description on Thomas. Click on the first link in the story.
As to NIST, well when asked they stated that the only trustworthy systems are ones that can be verified independently of the technology and to date only systems equipped with a VVPAT provide that as all the other proposed ones (e.g. Prime III) at some point require faith in preexaminations.
NIST, like most sensible people does not trust advance explanations to cover all cases.
NACO or the National Association of County Officials is what you refer to. NACO includes a Premier Corporate Membership program which allows companies to become members of the group. Microsoft, one of the members was heavily opposed to the bill (Windows CE is in the Diebold systems) and got NACO to lobby on their behalf.
Good Opt-Out bills have been tried Noteably HR 811 which failed explicitly because it was opt in and the budget hawks attacked it as a waste of money while the National Association of County Commissioners, a lobby group for the voting machine makers, claimed it was a big government attack on county territory.
All those groups claimed a willingness to support an opt-in version. None of them stepped up to the plate today though.
What you refer to is the Great Sparrow Campaign which was an attempt to combat a severe grain shortage in China by exterminating airborne and landborne pests that consumed or fouled the grain. Like most large-scale attempts to restructure nature this one failed with ugly ugly consequences. In this case, absent birds to eat them the locust population exploded killing the grain.
Interestingly enough just at the same time that China was facing this massive grain shortage Russia called in, loans that it had outstanding demanding grain and other food in payment. Rather than Default the communists forced the loans to be paid but that ended whatever positive relationship the two countries had. All through the 80's when people talked of a "Communist Conspiracy" they ignored the fact that after that little stunt the Chinese hated the Russians.
One possible consequence of cloud seeding may be hinted at in this Guardian article RAF Rainmakers 'caused 1952 flood' Let's hope that isn't the case.
I seem to recall a spate of threatened lawsuits and opposition to municipalities rolling their own coverage because it was "anti-competitive" and would cut into the profits of large telcos. Now those same telcos are abandoning their plans as "unprofitable" leaving many municipalities with nothing. If I were a libertarian I'd feel some sense of confusion, even doubt about the power of "the market" that was much hyped when people were attacking municipal wi-fi as "big government intrusion.
Instead I'll just say this: Ironic.
This guy seems like a nice candidate for an Ask Slashdot. I would ask two:
(1) How do you feel about large-scale datamining projects such as the Total Information Awareness project? While the project itself is gone it is not the first of its type. Do such projects strike you as technically feasible or even usable?
(2) As someone who has written software how do you feel about software patents?
Somewhat snarky (or sick) as this sounds I think you are right. The one true advantage that a suicide bomber confers is actually not the cheapness but the use of a human at all. As much as we may tend to hear them described as terrorists, etc. the simple fact of the matter is that most sucide bombers are anything but true believers but the misled, the misguided or the depressed.
But however much their personal reasons vary the fact that they are willing to blow themselves up sends a clear, and direct message. When the lives of a people are so bad that they can be found willing to kill themselves then what does that say? Put another way, when the people a government "serves" are so willing to die then no illusion of happiness can be maintained. And people, unlike robots can go where people go, cafes resteraunts, etc. They can look like anyone, be like anyone thus engendering the paranoia that destroys a civilization.
Look at Israel. The goal of suicide bombers there has been to make people afraid to go out, afraid to shop, afraid to sit in a cafe. Afraid, period to trust that the person next to them won't explode in a shower of nails at any moment. Not being an israeli I can't say how pervasive the fear is but my impression is that it is nonegligeable. Similar things could easily be said of Iraq where the prospect is that the neighbor might kill you for being a member of the wrong tribe or sect.
Until a robot offers gains at a comparatively cheap price they won't be chosen by "terrorists". Wealthier governments may prefer them but to what end? The laws of war (yes they exist) and the logic of war assumes human decisionmaking, an automatic robot seems more like a landmine, something that would kill "impersonally" and, like landmines seems likely to be one of those things that may do as much harm to the ones who deploy it as their "enemies" (let alone civilians) and will last long after the conflict in which it 'served'.
This American Life, is a PRI radio show that you can listen to online. They ran a good piece called "Know Your Enemy" that featured a meeting between a would-be suicide bomber and the Israeli minister of defense. The interview is enlightening both for the characteristics of the bomber and the process by which such suicide bombers are produced.
Just as with the supposed Islamic prohibition on beard trimming this is a point of contention in the Muslim world just as much as the acceptability of depictions of Christ (idol worship!), the right of women to wear pants, the right of people to read the bible, or the acceptability of Jesus Christ Superstar are points of disagreement in the Christian world. In both cases you find adherents on either side of the debate wielding, what they claim, to be the one true word and the weight of "tradition".
The answer really is that no one has the "proof" to back up the others and each group is just arguing that everyone do what they feel comfortable with. This article does take pains to point out that variability. Sadly most articles about religion often fail to note the internal divisions among "Christians", "Muslims", "Jews", etc. that often exceed the external ones.
Good point although I believe the rest of my comment still applies as in-vitro fertilization is also banned in Italy and opposed by the Church.
That is, in fact, exactly why many Catholics and others are dubious about the Pope's stance against Artificial Insemination, especially given the Church's serious support of being fruitful and multiplying, a goal they use to bolster their opposition both to abortion and contraceptives.
That having been said many religious people place an emotional primacy on the act of conception and birth and meddling with that miracle. As such it is not entirely contradictory for the Pope to be more concerned with the processes that purport to mess with the production of new lives rather than those that merely extend existing life.
The part of this where the Pope is not way off is the potential directions that Artificial Insemination might take (think Gattaca) where a technology that may be used to help couples who need it gets turned into a mechanism to weed out "undesirables" or even, in the case of more totalitarian societies, breed only "perfect" humans (think Brave New World).
As much as I defend Artificial Insemination for those who need it I strenuously oppose any attempt to make for designer children.
Artificial Insemination is an interesting one. Basically it is using externam equipment to produce a fertilized egg and then insert it into a woman who otherwize cannot succeed through normal means. It is a well-known practice and can even, for the squeamish, be performed for a married couple using only their eggs and sperm, no external players are needed.
/.ers might scoff at the pope and in many countries even ones with large Catholic populations like the U.S. his claims don't carry the weight of law. But in modern democratic Italy he can still arrainge for consenting married couples who want to raise healthy children of their own to be denied it because the process is "an affront".
Interestingly this procedure, well-accepted in most western societies is banned in Italy even for married couples using their own genetic material thanks to the Church. The argument goes something along the lines of: "If god wanted them to have kids he would let them do it normally."
It is interesting because most
So the title is misleading. The ACLU is filing suit against the county's decision to switch to Centrally-Counted optically scanned ballots where the ballots are filled out at the polling place and sent to a single central warehouse for scanning. They are not against Precinct-Counted optical scanners where they are scanned at the polling place.
The crux of their argument is that central counts unlike precinct count and even mediocre touchscreens offer the user a warning when they overvote or undervote for a race thus warning them that they ballot may not be counted and thus giving them a chance to fix it. Their argument is that this lack of a warning (however poor) is likely to cause many errors that the voters are never aware of.
So strictly speaking they are not against the use of paper ballots (it is my understanding that they favor them) just against this particular type of scanning system.
While this is not the most secret of the secretive (for years the very existence of the NSA was a secret) the fact that duties this big were assigned by a classified letter is appalling. When you couple this with the use of National Security Letters to compel the handover of goods to any thug in a trenchcoat it more and more appears that the goal of the present administration is to produce a kingly executive. One where oversight by the public and for the public is nonexistent and the whole process is simply inscrutable to us even as were are expected to knuckle under.
It is also interesting to me that it comes from this president who campaigned on the idea of a less controlling government, a smaller government, one that stayed out of our lives. This was based largely on the accusation that Clinton's favoratism for "Hate Crimes" legislation was an invasion of our privacy. It would be ironic if it was the least bit funny.
What I find is most interesting through is the use of the NSA in this manner. In many ways it is a textbook illustration of the way in which powers and agencies once built simply grow to fill all space they can. The NSA as initially instituted was a cold-war shop with the sole purpose of tapping and securing communications abroad while the existence of the group was a secret (many Americans were not aware of it until the 70's and the publication of the book "The Crystal Palace") it was, like the CIA, clearly setup to operate abroad and to spy on everyone but Americans.
It was, for lack of a better description a tool intended to work with us against others. With this addition that role has formally changed (it practically chainged with the AT&T hypocracy). While the formal change has been a secret the fact of the matter is that ever more of our resources are being turned inwards, onwords. Ever more effort is being expended to spy on us, on Americans with the understanding that our own government fears us as much or more than the rest of the world or at least that our own resources are better spent to attack us than others.
The idea of an executive floating on hostile seas rather than operating in safe waters has one crucial flaw. Dictators fall, and take everything around them, with them.
Yes actually there is a problem with having that if, it is mandatory. Therein lies the problem. If the government or indeed any twit in a uniform can demand your "RealID" and keep a log of it then your activities can be logged, your participation in, say, an anti-war demonstration can be cataloged and perhaps come back to haunt you. Ditto for your other unpopular views or activities.
The theory of valid ID may perhaps be arguable but the practice of what is done with it is very very different.
Post 9-11 there was a push both for RealID and the idea that "for our protection" police should be able to demand id at all times. The place where this and other activities has been exploited the most is in watching anti-war groups. Google it and you'll find a host of nonviolent noncriminal groups that have been catalogued, followed, identified, simply because they oppose the war. I myself have watched the (not so subtle) undercover cops infiltrate gatherings I was at and have probably been videotaped a few times. Add to this the "right" for them to demand my papers at all times and all of a sudden we have national tracking that does nothing to actually protect us.
This may sound like ranting to you but I assure you that it is not. The simple fact of the matter is that if the information is being gathered then it can be used against us by anyone in power or anyone with access. Leaving aside the fact that the biometric requirements of "RealID" are an invitation to identity theft (all info in one handy place).
Let us not also forget that on 9-11 the hijackers had valid ID. Not forged, not illicit, they had the real thing and they would have easily qualified for RealID. When boarding the planes they took their ID, the made no attempt to hide themselves under false names. They were not on the "no fly" lists. They simply walked through security with real drivers licenses and killed thousands. No "beefed up" card will change that.